Overview: Since 1933, the Jericho Fire Department has been charged with protecting its Long Island, New York community residents from the perils of fire and other emergency situations. The Department proudly provides Fire Prevention and Safety Education, Fire Suppression, Emergency Medical Services and Hazardous Materials response. Its staff of 36 dedicated employees and 94 volunteers valiantly serve the residents and businesses of the Jericho Fire District and, since its inception, the department has evolved into an all-risks emergency response agency, currently responding to about 1000 alarms each year. Together as a team they save lives, reduce property loss, and improve emergency services to meet the evolving life safety needs of citizens.

Challenge/Objective: As is the case with so many Fire Departments, maintaining control over the myriad keys kept at a firehouse can be challenging. It's critical to be able to have quick, but at the same time, controlled access to some of the keys. John O'Brien, Jericho Fire District Supervisor, chose to demo the MedixSafe Key Care Cabinet to determine if it would meet the Department's key control needs. The Department already had a MedixSafe Narcotics Cabinet/Safe in their ambulances and firehouse, which has been instrumental in securing their emergency response narcotics and making them available only to the advanced life support personnel authorized to administer them in an emergency. "It's been great," O'Brien notes. "There is no key to override it, and it provides an audit trail of who has accessed the safe and when. So when the Key Care Cabinet became available, we were eager to demo it."

Solution: O'Brien reports that "We loved what we saw, because key control was an issue, and knowing who is in the key cabinet and when is so important. The Key Care Cabinet gives us the ability to track that, as well as the capability to restrict access to those not of the rank to have access." The MedixSafe Key Care Cabinet is electronically controlled and allows the user to not only organize their access keys, but to control them, as well. A 'key' feature that differentiates the MedixSafe Key Care Cabinet from low-end key cabinets is that it enables more secure access. Because a single PIN can be easily compromised, dual, triple or biometric authentication credentials are required before access to the Key Care Cabinet is granted. Users can opt to go with a fingerprint and PIN combination, key card and PIN combination, or a key fob and PIN combination.

It accommodates over 1,000 individual users and provides an audit trail history of up to 50,000 events. The Key Care Cabinet is accessible via a remote Ethernet network and also has a manual key override. This ensures that the cabinet can still be accessed via a single key in the event of an electronic failure

Benefits: The ability to control access to crucial keys is among the most significant benefits the Jericho Fire Department is reaping from the MedixSafe Key Care Cabinet. Certain keys are especially important to store, O'Brien points out, including the Department's radio keys, auxiliary vehicle keys as well as keys to the fuel pumps. "Probably the most important," he says, "Are the keys for the sirens, which always need to be found quickly." There are also outside vendors the Department works with, and some of them need access to keys, as well. "My radio repairman, for instance, needs access," he adds. "We operate the radios, but he repairs them!" O'Brien adds that the software is very easy to operate, and the overall operation is extremely user-friendly. "It's really just some data entry, and our system is wireless, which made it easy to install. All we needed was a power outlet."

"The Key Care Cabinet would benefit firehouses everywhere," he says. "It ensures the security of the most important keys, and gives you the ability to control and track who's accessed those keys. I highly recommend it."

About Medixsafe
A leader in the access control cabinet market, MedixSafe began designing and manufacturing narcotics control cabinets in 2008. The first narcotics control cabinets were designed for the EMS market to be used in ambulances. Based on customer requests, MedixSafe designed and built different sized cabinets to meet their varying needs. MedixSafe caters to the key control needs of doctors, dentists, veterinarians, university research departments and schools of medicine, hospitals, the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, pharmacies, and more. For more information, visit http://medixsafe.com/

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